In an effort find ways to improve Lenoir County Public Schools, Superintendent Stephen Mazingo assembled a School System Task Force.

Mazingo compiled the taskforce earlier this year from a cross-section of area leaders, educators and parents — the vast majority of whom had connections to the education system.

In total, 58 people were invited to serve on the task force with 42 accepting the invitation. Of those 42, there were 29 members either employed by LCPS or with a direct connection to the school system. However, of the 16 who did not accept invitations, only four of them had a direct connection to LCPS.

In an e-mail sent out to prospective task force members on Feb. 1, Mazingo said discussion would be based around the statement, “Connecting your child to a prosperous future.”

Many in the community are only now hearing about the task force, but Mazingo said it was never his intention for the task force to operate in secret.

“It was always our intention to do this out in the open, which is why I tried to put together a task force that really spanned the entire community,” Mazingo said. “Doing something in secret was the furthest thing from my mind.”

Lenoir County Commissioner J. Mac Daughety, a task force member, said the purpose of the group was to come up with ideas and make suggestions to improve the county’s schools. He said the authority to act on any of the recommendations rests solely with the superintendent and school board.

“Our role was merely to look at the subject matter to make recommendations and to bring suggestions to the superintendent,” Daughety said. “We have no authority. We made the suggestion of a concept and an idea. It’s up to the superintendent to decide if this is what he wants and it’s up to the board to decide if that’s what they want to support and implement.”

According to notes provided to The Free Press by Mazingo, the task force met, as a whole, on four occasions from February to September while various sub-committees met at different times.

Daughety said the sub-committees covered a range of topics, including technology, athletics and charter academies.

Tom Vermillion, president of Down East Protection Systems, said he is currently serving on the technology sub-committee.

“We discussed what students would need technology-wise to make it in the 21st century and do school a little bit differently than when you had just paper and pencil,” Vermillion said

Constance Hengel, director of community programing and development at Lenoir Memorial Hospital, said she was on a committee about choice and they discussed the importance of parent choice in their child’s education.

Hengel said in the general meetings, the K-8 format was discussed and they spent a lot of time citing Contentnea-Savannah K-8 School as a model.

Page 2 of 3 - “Contentnea-Savannah is a model school for that concept and so many positive things are going on at Contentnea-Savannah that it would be great to replicate those success in other parts of the county,” she said.

In the notes provided to The Free Press, the first meeting recognized public schools are no longer a monopoly and change is needed in order to be more competitive. One bullet point states, “Parents are beyond ‘cookie cutter’ schools.”

Subsequent meetings show a range of concepts, including K-8 themed schools, school choice and preparing students for careers.

At the last meeting held Sept. 4, a recommendation was made for K-8 themed schools beginning possibly in 2014. However, it was noted the logistics of converting the schools to K-8 made that timeline unlikely. It was also noted that town hall meetings would be needed in addition to giving parents time to process the idea before a final decision could be made.

Mazingo said he will report on the progress of the task force at the next school board meeting, which is on Monday at 6 p.m.

Noah Clark can be reached at 252-559-1073 or Noah.Clark@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter at @nclark763.

Lenoir County Public Schools Superintendent Stephen Mazingo invited 58 people from all over the county to serve on the School System Task Force, which looked into ways to improve schools. Of the original 58, 42 served on the task force (with association in parenthesis):